


When The Bells Ring

by sasspan



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 08:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17118182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasspan/pseuds/sasspan
Summary: Life was wonderful…but why?





	When The Bells Ring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyromanicofthesea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyromanicofthesea/gifts).



> Hi pyromanicofthesea! This is your secret stantler :) I decided to do a little character introspection with anime Mewtwo, who I've always loved--as research, I rewatched the first movie, the uncut origins special, and the mewtwo returns special. I hope you like it!!

They found a quiet little lake, tucked high in the Blackthorn Mountains, untouched by humans and pokémon alike. Difficult to find, difficult to reach.

But not impossible.

_We must be cautious_ , he told his copies. _There remain those who may seek to harm us._

Giovanni still lurked, after all. Yet, for the first time, Mewtwo’s thoughts did not linger on those who wished to oppose him; they turned, instead, on the clones that followed him.

It was very strange, to glance over his shoulder and see their faces. Pikachutwo, Meowthtwo, Charizardtwo, so many others. Exactly like their originals, but, at the same time, so terribly different.

Just like himself.

A few cautious rounds of the neighboring towns and a few subtle probes into some human minds yielded information. The mountain they had settles upon was Mount Quena; the lake, Lake Clarity.

The lake was odd. Its waters were still and very clear. Their depths were unfathomable. When the Goldeentwo splashed in them, the little cuts that littered its fin from their long journey healed almost immediately.

_It’s a funny place_ , thought Meowthtwo. _I wonder why the water is the way it is._

_Perhaps the lake was formed from the tears of pokémon_ , Mewtwo replied. _I have heard that the tears of pokémon are filled with life._

Meowthtwo flicked its ear in amusement. _Who told you that?_

He thought. He could not remember. _I don’t know._

* * *

When the trainer had run forward, when he had flung himself between Mewtwo and his original, when he had fallen to the ground, petrified.

When the pokémon, all of them, original and copy alike, had wept. When their tears glittered in the air, like so many stars.

Yes. When that had happened.

_Don’t cry—_

He had almost remembered. 

* * *

For a time Mewtwo was…content. Not happy. He did not ever remember feeling happy, but contentment was an acceptable compromise.

He thought, _Perhaps happiness is not possible for copies._

But when he saw Goldeentwo splashing in the mountain streams, when he saw Vulpixtwo frolicking in the verdant grass, he reconsidered. Perhaps relishing in the simple joy of existence…perhaps that was happiness.

And yet. A restlessness curled in his mind. There was something else. Something more.

In the deepest recesses of his memory, faint words remained, brought to light only in the absence of anger.

_Life is wonderful._

He had to find out. He had to go back to the beginning, and find out.

Life was wonderful…but why? 

* * *

New Island had been overtaken by foliage, as if the plants had decided to swallow up the evidence of all that had occurred there. Mewtwo let himself fly away from it, towards Cinnabar, in the blind, aimless.

When he descended from the clouds, he did not expect to know where he was. Pavement, houses, trees, roads; the gridwork of a city stretched out before him.

He felt a shock of recognition. _I have been here before._

But when? He remembered, with precise clarity, all the areas Giovanni had sent him to. He had operated near Viridian, Cerulean, Pewter. Never here.

And yet…

This place, it shimmered with familiarity. The trees…the breeze. The clouded sky overhead. He felt drawn to it.

It pulled him down, down, to a building larger than the others, set apart. Mewtwo touched upon the ground. It was very quiet here.

The building before him, it was quiet, too. A husk of a place. He felt no living presence, but…

He drifted forward, through the gaping doors. The rooms within were large and indistinguishable from each other; filled with chairs, tables, papers that were strewn about. Dust coated every surface.

_What a strange place_ , he thought.

The laboratory. Giovanni’s gym. His own fortress. None of them had been like this place. This place felt strangely intimate, as though only few had ever known it.

_What is this place?_

_A home, silly_ , a voice whispered.

Mewtwo started, whipping around, his mind on high alert, scanning the area. _Who was that?_

There was no one there.

_Show yourself!_

The empty rooms offered no response.

A shudder crawled up his spine. Giovanni had told him, once, that there were pokémon that could slip between the spaces of the living and dead. Ghosts.

Perhaps a pokémon of the type lingered here.

Mewtwo moved through the halls at a slower pace, straining for a sign of another pokémon. The tug in his mind became stronger, leading him to a set of stairs that trailed down into the dark basement of the building.

Beside the stairs was a small ledge; and on this ledge, a picture in a frame. He gave this a perfunctory look—

_That face._

He remembered that face. The face of his creator; the closest thing he had to a parent, a father.

The last time he had seen that face, it had been flat with resignation. Moments before death.

_I did that._

Yes, it had been he who destroyed New Island, the laboratory, and the researchers along with it. Had it been an accident? He was not sure, not even now. Yes, his power had been uncontrolled—his emotions even more so—but nevertheless…

_Fuji did not care for me._

That was also true. But did it justify anything? After all, it was not as if he, Mewtwo, had cared for his copies at the very start. No, it had taken time, realization. Things Fuji had not been afforded.

He stared at that face for a long time before moving his eyes downward.

There were two other people in the photo. One was a woman with lines around her eyes and a careful smile. A gold band gleamed at her finger.

The other was a girl, half-hidden behind a huge straw hat. This gave him pause. How odd she looked; how small. Mewtwo could not remember being this young.

The girl’s features were largely hidden by the ridiculous hat. But he could see, peeping over the brim, part of one glimmering eye.

He stared at this face for a long time, too. Then he went down the stairs. 

* * *

There were journals in the basement. Dozens of them, haphazardly abandoned, as though they had been caught in a whirlwind.

Mewtwo riffled through them with his mind, all at once.

_Today my colleagues will reach the site…_

_….the most powerful pokémon the world has ever known…_

_…Giovanni is financing the expedition…_

_…powerful enough to survive……_

_…an enhanced, living replica….._

_Mew._

The pages stopped fluttering. All of the journals closed, except for one, which he brought closer to himself. It had in its pages a photograph of the carving, the carving he had destroyed along with the rest of New Island.

Mew.

His original. His predecessor. His better.

Would he never escape its shadow?

Even now, at the edge of his consciousness, he could feel the delicate thread of connection to Mew. Wherever it was in the world.

It had lead them to Mount Quena, he and his clones; and then it disappeared.

How he envied it. How he wished he could have such freedom.

Perhaps he had been right, before. Perhaps copies could never experience the same true happiness as their originals could.

“That doesn’t matter.”

Mewtwo spun, an attack at the ready, to find—

_The girl._

She was unchanged, in stature, in appearance. Small and bright-eyed, her hair loose about her face and her dress only slightly faded. The only difference was that the hat was missing.

_Who are you? Why have you come here?_

Yet even as he thought the words, his shock dulled. There was something so familiar about her as well, an echo of remembrance. Had he met her before?

“This is where I used to live,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “It’s my remember place.”

_Remember place?_

“Yeah, the place I come to remember the old me.” She looked around the room. “But, you know, I didn’t come down here a lot. My daddy didn’t let me.”

She shook her head a bit and turned back to him. “Anyways, like I said, Mewtwo. It doesn’t matter if we’re copies, or originals, or human, or pokémon. It’s all the same in the end.”

She knew his name; somehow this did not surprise him. Her words did.

_It does matter_ , he thought. _Those born in this world, and those created…we walk different paths. Some of us must stand alone._

The girl shook her head and sighed, but she was smiling, too. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

She led him up the stairs, through the halls, out the door. As they stepped outside, Mewtwo saw that it had begun to snow, soft feathery flakes billowing down from the clouds.

“Come on,” the girl said again, and with a quick hop, lifted off the ground and into the air.

He followed her, flying through the air and deeper into the city. The snow was already blanketing the landscape below them, muting the edges of buildings and streets until they were rounded white blurs. Millions of golden lights decorated the trees and roofs, a mirror to the stars that peeped between the clouds above.

As they moved closer to the city’s center, Mewtwo began to hear something unlike anything he had ever heard before. An echoing, tremulous sound, exquisitely surreal in the cold air. A silver melody like clear water over stones, like wind through young grass. Voices that swelled and dipped in matching pitch; human, pokémon, original, copy. One and the same.

Lights twinkled.

_What…is this?_

Mewtwo was mystified. Never had he experienced something like this; something both unified and divided, something both discordant and harmonious. Every voice unique. Every voice the same.

“Those are songs,” the girl murmured. “They’re singing.”

_But why?_

“Because it’s Christmas. Because they want to be together.”

Questions rolled slowly around his mind, but none that he could voice. Instead he just looked at her. The moon had appeared in a gap amid the clouds; she was washed in the cold light.

“Oh, Mewtwo,” she whispered. Snowflakes swirled around her, through her. “Don’t you see? Being a part of this world means the world is a part of you. You can’t run away from others any more than you can run away from yourself.”

Behind her he thought he saw shapes move, familiar shapes.

Squirtletwo, Bulbasaurtwo. Like the ones he had left at the lake, except—

_Different._

Charmandertwo peered around the girl’s shoulder.

“I know,” she said. “Being like this, a copy. It’s lonely, isn’t it?”

_Yes._

She nodded. “But, see, that just makes it even more important to stay with each other, and care about each other. See, Mewtwo?”

He thought he did. He was not sure. Drifting in the air, in a circle with the girl and the copies, he felt impossibly young.

The singing faded away to nothingness. The other copies did, too, until it was just him and the girl.

From the city came a reverberating sound, an insistent clanging.

“It’s Christmas bells,” she said. Her eyes gleamed, and something sparkled at their corners, like stars.

_You’re crying_ , Mewtwo said.

“Because I’m happy, silly.”

_I don’t understand._

She giggled, and the movement sent shining liquid slipping over her cheeks. “They’re happy tears. Tears of joy.”

_I thought tears were sad._

“Not always.” Through the snowflakes she looked different. Younger and older. Both like an infant and like a young woman at once. The person she used to be; the person she might have been. Grown in death as she never was in life.

“I’m glad I got to see you again,” she said. “I think I’ll miss you very much.”

This time he did not ask where she was going. He knew; just as he knew that all the tears he could cry would not change it.

And yet, strangely, he was happy, too. That he had come here; that he had seen her. That he could now go back, to the lake, to his home.

“Do you remember now?” she asked. “Do you remember my name?”

In that moment, under the moon, under the stars, he did.

She smiled.

“Thank you,” she said.

The bells rang.


End file.
